Additional Seating is Available at San Diego Theatre’s Website HERE.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2024 · 7:30 PM
LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO
50TH ANNIVERSARY
BALBOA THEATRE
Prelude Interview hosted by Molly Puryear · 6:30 PM
RF 14 – Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo from Ravello Festival on Vimeo.
Look no further for top-notch ballet that’s also uproariously funny! The world’s foremost all-male comic ballet company, famed for performing en travesti and on pointe, is back with another sensational program spoofing some of your favorite works—for the first time in San Diego. The virtuosity and technical prowess of these dancers amaze even as they exaggerate the foibles, accidents, and underlying incongruities of serious dance. As pioneers of diversity and acceptance, the Trocks’ mission continues: to bring the pleasure of dance to the widest possible audience.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo was founded in 1974 by a group of ballet enthusiasts for the purpose of presenting a playful, entertaining view of traditional, classical ballet in parody form and en travesti, Les Ballets Trockadero first performed in the late-late shows in Off-Off Broadway lofts. The Trocks, as they are affectionately known, quickly garnered a major critical essay by Arlene Croce in The New Yorker, and combined with reviews in The New York Times and The Village Voice, established the Company as an artistic and popular success. By mid 1975, the Trocks’ inspired blend of their loving knowledge of dance, their comic approach, and the astounding fact that men can, indeed, dance en pointe without falling flat on their faces, was being noted beyond New York. Articles and notices in publications such as Variety, Oui, The London Daily Telegraph, and a Richard Avedon photo essay in Vogue made the Company nationally and internationally known.
The Trocks’ numerous tours have been both popular and critical successes—their frenzied annual schedule has included ten tours to Australia and New Zealand, 28 to Japan (where their annual summer tours have created a nationwide cult following and a fan club), nine to other parts of Asia, twelve to South America, three to South Africa, and 76 tours of Europe, including 21 tours of the United Kingdom. In the United States, the Company has become a regular part of the college and university circuit in addition to regular dance presentations in cities in 49 states. The Company has appeared in over 34 countries and 600 cities worldwide since its founding in 1974.
Increasingly, the Company is presenting longer seasons, which have included extended engagements in New York City (at the Joyce Theater) Amsterdam, Athens, Auckland, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Brisbane, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Leipzig, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Melbourne, Moscow (at the famed Bolshoi Theater), Paris (at the Chatelet Theater and Folies Bergere), Perth, Rome, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Vienna and Wellington.
The Company continues to appear in benefits for international AIDS organizations such as DRA (Dancers Responding to AIDS) and Classical Action in New York City, the Life Ball in Vienna, Austria, Dancers for Life in Toronto, Canada, London’s Stonewall Gala and Germany’s AIDS Tanz Gala. In addition, the Trocks have given or participated in special benefit performances for Connecticut Ballet Theater, Ballet Hawaii, Indianapolis Ballet Theater, Rochester City Ballet, Dancers in Transition (NYC), Sadler’s Wells Theater in London and the Gay and Lesbian Community Center and Young Audiences / Arts for Learning Organization, and the Ali Forney Center, benefiting homeless gay youths in New York City.
The original concept of the Trocks has not changed. It is a Company of professional male dancers performing the full range of the ballet and modern dance repertoire, including classical and original works in faithful renditions of the manners and conceits of those dance styles. The comedy is achieved by incorporating and exaggerating the foibles, accidents, and underlying incongruities of serious dance. The fact that men dance all the parts—heavy bodies delicately balancing on toes as swans, sylphs, water sprites, romantic princesses, angst-ridden Victorian ladies—enhances rather than mocks the spirit of dance as an art form, delighting and amusing the most knowledgeable, as well as novices, in the audiences. For the future, there are plans for new works in the repertoire: new cities, states and countries to perform in; and for the continuation of the TROCKS’ original purpose. They will, as they have done for 40 years, “Keep on Trockin’.”